In general, the present invention relates to a portable radio information terminal and a message-notifying method adopted in the portable radio information terminal to notify the user of the portable radio information terminal of an incoming signal. More particularly, the present invention relates to a portable radio information terminal for confirming that a radio wave received from a radio base station installed at a remote location is a message signal destined for the portable radio information terminal, for notifying the user of the received message signal in the form of sound, light, mechanical vibration or another form to make the user aware of the arrival of the message signal and for displaying a message conveyed in the signal on an embedded screen display unit. The present invention also relates to a message-notifying method adopted in the portable radio information terminal to notify the user of the portable radio information terminal of an incoming signal. In particular, the present invention relates to a portable radio information terminal for carrying out radio communication of signals such as a pager and a message-notifying method adopted in the portable radio information terminal to notify the user of the portable radio information terminal of an incoming signal.
A portable radio information terminal is a handy and portable apparatus that is capable of functioning as a terminal of a communication network. In recent years, there have been implemented portable radio information terminals with a variety of configurations and functions to meet a rapidly growing demand in a wide range of applications in the field of information communication.
An example of such a portable radio information terminal is a pager which is widely used for carrying out communications of radio signals.
An early pager is a terminal for generating ringing sound of a bell when a calling signal is received from a radio base station. A radio calling signal is capable of calling the user carrying this pager even if the user is present at a place far away from a wire telephone set. The radio calling signal is normally used to urge the user to respond to the calling signal by using a wire telephone closest to the user.
By the way, a signal generated by the radio base station is not merely ended with such a calling signal. A signal generated by the radio base station is also capable of conveying information. On the pager side, on the other hand, information conveyed by an incoming signal is decoded and displayed a result of the decoding on a Liquid crystal display panel as a message. A pager having functions to notify the user of an incoming call, decode information conveyed by the incoming-call signal and display such information on a Liquid crystal display panel has been developed and widely used at the present time.
In recent years, such a pager is further provided with more functions such as a function to generate ringing sound of a bell to notify the user of an incoming message so that the user will not miss an incoming call when the pager is used outdoors or at a trip destination or, in particular, in a noisy environment. At a place such as a movie theater or a lecture meeting place, on the other hand, there is not much noise. At such a place, message sound or calling sound will adversely be a disturbance to the atmosphere. In order to solve the problems described above, the pager is provided with a message-notifying means including a vibration function of a vibrator for informing the user of a message by vibration in place of ringing sound of a bell. The pager is designed into a configuration that allows the user to manually operate an input device to select either ringing sound of a bell or vibration of a vibrator as a message-notifying means.
By the way, the portable radio information terminal with the configuration described above is also provided with a function to switch the portable radio information terminal to a message-storage mode in order to prevent message sound such as ringing sound of a bell from being generated in the event of a call arriving at inconvenient times such as a late night and an early morning or during a sleeping period of time.
That is to say, the portable radio information terminal has a message-notification mode and the message-storage mode which can be switched from one to another as the user likes. In the message-notification mode, message sound such as ringing sound of a bell is generated in the event of an incoming call to notify the user of the incoming call and information on the received message is displayed on a screen. In the message-storage mode, on the other hand, no message sound such as ringing sound of a bell is generated in the event of an incoming call in order to suppress the notifying of the message. Instead, the incoming call is just received and the information on the message is stored in a memory.
Normally, the portable radio information terminal is put in the message-notification mode. When a predetermined point of time is reached or the user enters a command to switch the operating mode, the portable radio information terminal transits from the message-notification mode to the message-storage mode. In this way, it is possible to solve a problem of a disturbance caused by ringing sound of a bell generated at the inconvenient times or during the sleeping period of time.
By the way, it is desirable to provide the portable radio information terminal with a function to display a message on the screen so as to allow the user to easily know whether the portable radio information terminal is in the message notification mode or message-storage mode at the present time. For this reason, there has been proposed a configuration wherein the portable radio information terminal is provided with a special display mark or an icon for displaying the fact that the portable radio information terminal is in the message-storage mode at the present time, and the special display mark displayed on the screen is turned on during the message-storage mode.
However, it is necessary to make a display screen panel embedded in the portable radio information terminal small in size along as part of an effort made in recent years to make the portable radio information terminal compact. On the other hand, the amount of a message text to be displayed on the screen exhibits an increasing trend so that it is desirable to provide a portable radio information terminal with a configuration having an area on the screen for displaying a message text as large as possible.
That is to say, it is necessary to reduce the area on the screen other than the area for displaying a message text as much as possible. Thus, it is not wise to design a portable radio information terminal into a configuration wherein a number of display marks including the special icon for the message-storage mode described above are displayed on the screen.
It is thus an object of the present invention addressing the problems encountered in a portable radio information terminal having the conventional screen configuration as described above to provide a portable radio information terminal capable of displaying information on a limited area of the screen with a high degree of efficiency and a message-notifying method for the portable radio information terminal.
According to a screen displaying method for a portable radio information terminal including a radio-wave receiving means as in one embodiment of the present invention, an operation to at least display displays marks of message-notifying devices on a screen of an image displaying unit is halted if the portable radio information terminal has been set in a message-storage mode for suppressing an operation to notify the user of a message in the event of an incoming information signal conveying the message. As a result, the message-storage mode can be recognized with ease.
In addition, since it is not necessary to prepare a display mark specially used to indicate a message-storage mode, the area of the screen can be used with a higher degree of efficiency.
In a portable radio information terminal according to another embodiment of the present invention, there are provided at least three means including a display-mark turning on/off means used for displaying a display mark of a selected message-notifying device on a screen of an image displaying unit in a message-notification mode or halting an operation to display display marks of all message-notifying devices including a selected message-notifying device in a message-storage mode. Thus, in the message-storage mode, an operation carried out by a selected message-notifying device to notify the user of an incoming information signal and an operation to display display marks of all message-notifying devices are halted. As a result, the message-storage mode can be recognized from a displayed screen with ease.
In addition, since it is not necessary to prepare a display mark specially used to indicate a message-storage mode, the area of the screen can be used with a higher degree of efficiency.
In a recording medium according to another embodiment of the present invention, there are stored at least three means each as a program, that is, a procedure that can be fetched for execution by a computer. The three means include a display-mark turning on/off means used displaying a display mark of a selected message-notifying device on a screen of an image displaying unit in a message-notification mode or halting an operation to display display marks of all message-notifying devices including a selected message-notifying device in a message-storage mode.
Thus, by incorporating the recording medium in a portable radio information terminal having a central processing unit, an input device, the image displaying unit and a message-storage memory as a memory for storing operating procedures to be executed by a central processing unit and by letting the central processing unit sequentially execute the three means each stored in the recording medium as an operating procedure, it is possible to easily provide the portable radio information terminal with a function to halt an operation carried out by a selected message-notifying device to notify the user of an incoming information signal and an operation to display display marks of all message-notifying devices in the message-storage mode.
In a storage unit of a microcomputer according to another embodiment there are stored at least three means each as a program that can be fetched for execution by a computer. The three means include a display-mark turning on/off means used for displaying a display mark of a selected message-notifying device on a screen of an image displaying unit in a message-notification mode or halting an operation to display display marks of all message-notifying devices including a selected message-notifying device in a message-storage mode.
Thus, by incorporating the microcomputer in a portable radio information terminal equipped with components including a communication mechanism unit, a memory unit for recording a received message, an input device used for entering an input command, the message-notifying units, the image displaying unit for displaying information such as a message and a power-supply circuit, it is possible to implement the portable radio information terminal having a function to halt an operation carried out by a selected message-notifying device to notify the user of an incoming information signal and an operation to display display marks of all the message-notifying devices in the message-storage mode in a simple configuration.
According to a screen displaying method for a portable radio information terminal including an image displaying unit as in another embodiment of the present invention, at least one of display marks of message-notifying means is put in a blanking state on a screen of the image displaying unit if the portable radio information terminal has been set in a message-storage mode for suppressing an operation to notify the user of a message in the event of an incoming information signal conveying the message. As a result, the message-storage mode can be recognized with ease.
In addition, since it is not necessary to prepare a display mark specially used to indicate a message-storage mode, the area of the screen can be used with a higher degree of efficiency.
In a portable radio information terminal according to another embodiment of the present invention, there are provided at least four means including a display-mark turning-on means used for turning on a display mark of a selected message-notifying device displayed on a screen of an image displaying unit in a message-notification mode and a means used for putting at least one of display marks of message-notifying means displayed on the screen of the image displaying unit in a blanking state in a message-storage mode. As a result, the message-storage mode can be recognized from a displayed screen with ease from the winking state of at least one of the display marks of the message-notifying means displayed on a screen of the image displaying unit. In addition, since it is not necessary to prepare a display mark specially used to indicate a message-storage mode, the area of the screen can be used with a higher degree of efficiency.
In a recording medium according to another embodiment of the present invention, there are stored at least four means each as a program, that is, a procedure that can be fetched for execution by a computer. The four means include a display-mark turning-on means used for displaying a display mark of a selected message-notifying device on a screen of an image displaying unit in a message-notification mode and a means used for putting at least one of display marks of message-notifying means displayed on the screen of the image displaying unit in a blanking state in a message-storage mode.
Thus, by incorporating the recording medium in a portable radio information terminal having a central processing unit, an input device, the image displaying unit and a message-storage memory as a memory for storing operating procedures to be executed by a central processing unit and by letting the central processing unit sequentially execute the four means each stored in the recording medium as an operating procedure, it is possible to easily provide the portable radio information terminal with a function to halt an operation carried out by a selected message-notifying device to notify the user of an incoming information signal and a function to put at least one of the display marks of the message-notifying means displayed on the screen of the image displaying unit in a blanking state in the message-storage ode.
In a storage unit of a microcomputer according to another embodiment the present invention, there are stored at least four means each as a program that can be fetched for execution by a computer. The four means include a display-mark turning-on means used for turning on a display mark of a selected message-notifying device displayed on a screen of an image displaying unit in a message-notification mode and a means used for putting at least one of display marks of message-notifying means displayed on the screen of the image displaying unit in a blanking state in a message-storage mode.
Thus, by incorporating the microcomputer in a portable radio information terminal equipped with components including a communication mechanism unit, a memory unit for recording a received message, an input device used for entering an input command, the message-notifying units, the image displaying unit for displaying information such as a message and a power-supply circuit, it is possible to implement the portable radio information terminal having a function to halt an operation carried out by a selected message-notifying device to notify the user of an incoming information signal and turn on a display mark of a selected message-notifying device displayed on the screen of the image displaying unit in a message-notification mode and a function to put at least one of the display marks of the message-notifying means displayed on the screen of the image displaying unit in a blanking state in a message-storage mode.